Wednesday, September 20, 2006

What Went Wrong With Conservatism

One thing that's missing in the Republican campaign rhetoric this time around is conservatism as a platform. Oh sure, the chest-inflating anti-terror stuff is there, but even that seems phony. Could you imagine Barry Goldwater in his prime acting like President Bush did at the United Nations yesterday? Could you imagine the man who confronted President Nixon and told him to get out, ducking around the halls of the UN to keep from meeting the President of Iran? Goldwater would have been there when the Iranian leader's plane landed and started debating him right on the tarmac. Do you realize the election bonanza if President Bush had cornered the Iranian leader in some hallway and spoke his mind? You know it wouldn't have taken long.

The difference is that Goldwater was a true conservative, and a real man. Guys like Cheney and Bush love talking tough in the Rose Garden but they don't want to confront anything. Oh, Cheney will shoot at quail but he can't even pull that off. And President Bush is glad to talk manly about wanting the bad guys dead or alive, as long as he's sending your kid to die trying to do it. Just let him know how it went when he gets back from his bicycle ride.

The conservative movement has been hijacked by phonies. The idea of a smaller government that gets off your back? President Bush would be met with laughter if he tried to pull that one out. How about the tried and true talk of fiscal responsibility? After decades of complaining about Democrats spending in Congress this group has gone completely crazy. Corruption is rampant and spending is out of control. Special interests are in charge. Raytheon wanted a contract to defend against RPGs, along with several years to develop it - even though a system exists today that could be saving American soldiers as we speak. Guess what? This Republican Congress protected the interests of the corporation over our soldiers. Even as cynical as I've become, that one is still shocking. I wonder if they'll bring up how much they support the troops this time around?

Where Goldwater's ideas met their defeat was when the Republicans turned their party into a Christian fundamentalist organization. Instead of getting government out of our lives, they want to run the whole show. This party gets its power from the religious movement in this country. So you have a bunch of immoral phonies at the top hijacking America's future and using the power of religion for political control. This form of government has never worked all that well, and it's not working well now. The world is full of places like this. Theocracies are anti-freedom. In fact, one of the reasons America was founded was to get away from this kind of stifling religious power grab. Not only is that not getting government off our backs, it's trying to put government in charge of our souls. No wonder these people don't bring up real conservatism anymore.

19 Comments:

At 10:28 PM, Blogger LaurelhurstDad said...

Well said.

And though I liked the comment about it not taking long for Bush to speak his mind, you are of course assuming he has one. I think he just rents space in Cheney's.

 
At 10:06 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

I thought of a joke this morning about Bush addressing the U.N. and how his speech had to be translated in to ENGLISH-BADABOOM!. As a professional joke writer what do you think?

 
At 10:14 AM, Blogger Bill McDonald said...

We were all over that angle so you're right in play.
That had a chance especially before the event, but afterwards Chavez, etc, changed the dynamic. That can happen.
Here's one from today:
The Space Shuttle has landed safely back on earth. Now if we could just get Willie Nelson to come down.

 
At 10:24 AM, Blogger Bill McDonald said...

tr,
Here's Conan's version:
President Bush addressed the United Nations today. So it could be understood the speech was translated simultaneously in French, German and English.

 
At 10:24 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

Timing is everything. Chavez should have made a fart joke (Was Bush just in here? Ay Carumba! Somebody open a window).

 
At 10:25 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

The Conan version makes me realize why I better keep my day job.

 
At 10:34 AM, Blogger Bill McDonald said...

I should do more with analyzing other comedy writers jokes. It's crazy that I mainly blog about stuff I'm not really knowledgable about. When I hear a good joke I always break it down. Frankly, I thought your version got there quicker than Conan and quicker is usually better. For example Conan had one about Bobby and Whitney breaking up because seeing each other violated the terms of their parole. Letterman just said they've decided to see other crackheads.
Conan's version was better as a concept, but David's was quicker and therefore funnier.
Mine was Bobby and Whitney are splitting the stash...I mean sheets.

 
At 10:56 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

I find your joke analysis really interesting because you know what you are talking about and the art of joke writing is obscure. A really good joke sounds effortless but if you try to come up with one you realize how really complex it is to create something that sounds so simple and obvious.

 
At 12:26 PM, Blogger Bill McDonald said...

Thanks, the key is to make the last word go Boom! So many times the joke is there but the right word isn't last.

 
At 12:41 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bush won't confront anything? You mean like terrorism? Disagree with his methods all you want, but it is simply assinign to say he is not confronting it. You're confusing him with his predecessor.

 
At 1:57 PM, Blogger Bill McDonald said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

 
At 1:58 PM, Blogger Bill McDonald said...

I believe his personality is to talk tough. Now when the President talks tough things happen. But that's the same George W, who used to ask his Daddy's connections to do things for him. It's the pattern of a spoiled rich kid who wants the easy way out while others do the bleeding and dying. The actual man is a phony. He should have confronted the leader of Iran at the UN instead of ducked around like a little chicken hawk. He's going to let other leaders trash talk our country in New York and not even confront them when you're in the same building? Ridiculous.

 
At 2:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh please. For The President of the United States to give any response to the peon Ahmanadajin or the thug Chavez would have been demeaning to the office and you know it.

Chavez was an embarrassment to his people today and yesterday....and always has been. And you want OUR President to address that gangster's comments? Pathetic.

 
At 3:45 PM, Blogger Bill McDonald said...

Forget Chavez. He was the day after.
As for demeaning the office of the Presidency that's what this President is all about.
At least we can agree that Chavez shouldn't come here and mouth off. Who needs that?

 
At 4:50 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

I say we pull out of Iraq and invade Venezuela, better climate, not so far to commute and I bet in Venezuela the boys will be able to get plenty of booze and whores which as I understand are in very short supply in the Middle East. It's a win win.

 
At 5:16 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Or we should deter Iran from pursuing nukes by secretly selling them conventional weapons and funnel that money to opposition groups that will overthrw Chavez.....oh wait, been there.....

 
At 7:59 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

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Got yer conservative platforms right here.

Bill, if there is a way to make a joke out of the following, pass it around. Sort of pro bono joke writing, I guess, for the social good and civil order and general welfare. If there is no joke but a strong 'framing' set-up, pass that around, too.

Everything political is tax-and-spend.

Liberals tax-and-spend on people's lives.

Conservatives tax-and-spend on killing people.


-

And, Bill, all the words of all the GOP platforms over all the years, add up to say this:

Only socialism survives without oil.

I wish there was a rule a person had to read that website in order to blog a comment. Or vote.

Conservative means greed. They're serious, don't take it so comically.

----

Oh, one other stub of a joke, about Bush seeing Osama at the U.N. and walking over to shake his gland.

 
At 8:17 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good thing your joke writing is pro-bono.

Only socialism survives without oil? Were their ONLY socialists prior to the 1800's?

 
At 4:12 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

-
Good point, historical precedent.

The world was "without oil" before 1800, and there was no politics, only imperialists and not one of them survived. Even the mighty British Empire, where the sun never set, flushed down the tubes into darkness.

And all along, peasant people keeping peasant people kept humankind surviving.

Then (post-1800) public education got peasants reading and writing and furthering sense of group, and then, social groups learned they are all people power. The greatest power humankind has is together. It's called 'love' or 'God' or something.

An individual is one life. Humankind is eternal consciousness.

So, in the 1800's, collective organization concentrated people power, the phenomenon got a name -- progressivism or social order, (whatever you like; I like to use 'socialism' for its shock value on your thoughts stunted from 60 years of p.r. paralyzing you with that word, propaganda intended to keep you from grasping your part in the power we have over 'politicians' -- meaning degenerates and throwbacks unevolved beyond 'brute force imperative' ignorance back in pre-enlightenment, pre-literate times -- but let me not distemper you linguistically shocking your neurotic seizure knots ... like Bill's latest post suggests, let's keep it light: penis penis penis vagina vagina vagina booger booger booger; there, does that feel better), and with a word to comprehend the phenomenon, (Marx's 'socialism' name for it), humankind consciousness worldwide has advanced rapidly since then.

Notice, of history, social and community sense has always and only advanced and grown. No brute force has been able to eradicate human intercourse's socialism, try as demented psychopaths (Hitlers, Bushes) might. You can't eradicate a sense which is built in human genetic makeup, without eradicating humankind.

Social consciousness has only developed more and spread wider over time, from an almost invisible beginning. Brutish submission/domination mentality, from an inhumanly belligerent, rapacious, beginning of, really, no consciousness at all, has only shrunken globally and retreated smaller into isolated enclaves over time, (a.k.a. 'gated communities').

Music appreciation has only developed and spread wider over time. Defying eradication.

Art appreciation has only developed and spread wider over time. Defying eradication.

Sympathy and grace, gratitude, has only developed and spread wider over time.

Imperious degenerative brain births have bred their own elimination, and eventually, extinction. Justice castrates rapists -- mainly the sons of it slay those fathers. Mother Nature doesn't like being raped. (Addressing your thread topic, Bill: 'What Went Wrong With Conservatism?')

The form-myth within the human psych expressed as a 'messianic return,' or 're-establishment of idyllic Eden,' (in various religio-cepts), referring to a futuristic peace abiding on Earth, has in no part of any of the versions a figurement of a 'king' or 'presiding' character at a central (capital) location who dictates legality and hears 'peasant' appeals. In all the worded presagements out of human consciousness describing the peace to come on humankind's Earth, every one notes 'it' (the peace, love, godliness, whatever you like to comprend 'it' as), emerges from within all of us (human genome) and is performed by us among us for us, (no dispensing uber-person 'over' us, none 'more empowered' than another -- "ruler by divine right," what a hilarious bogus crock -- none more powerful than), collective humankind.

Socialism. In a word.

Apres oleum, les sapiense.

 

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